Over the weekend I took the MSF Basic Riders Course / Riders Edge course. (Riders Edge is just a Harley branded version of the MSF course…).

Passed. Book work was nothing. First riding day was a bit boring and simplistic. It’s designed for folks with absolutely no riding experience at all.

But second day got a little bit more interesting, with focus on slow speed handling and what not. Even managed to
scrape the pegs on an exercise.

Spent most of the last two days riding a Buell Blast around the Walnut Creek vip parking lot. Those bikes are very light, and somewhat underpowered (360 pounds and a 500cc 35 hp engine ) with a very “lumpy” engine. When I rode my bike to work this morning, the 800cc twin seems silky smooth and incrediably torquey in comparison.

Overall, the course wasnt bad. There was way too much Harley/Buell marketing in it, but aside from that was pretty enjoyable.

Pic of a RU-8 at the
National Cryptologic Museum in Fort Meade, MA.

My dad worked on this type of plane in Vietnam.

I was reading an article in Cycle World about inexpensive motorcycles. One of the bikes reviewed was a Triumph Bonneville Black (aka, just like mine).

One of the reviewers made the comment (paraphrased): “This bike is perfect for picking up artsy chicks.”

Lets hope so.

Route I took for the trip. I must of saved the gps track info wrong and missed the data from
Thursday, but I went 64->49.

total: 1144
todays mileage: 151

Slept late. Ate pancakes for breakfast. Packed up my stuff,
and started to pack up the bike. This is when I made a dumb
mistake. Since my parents live on a dirt road, with a gravel
driveway, there is not a great place to park the bike. So I
had just parked it out in the yard. I couldn’t find a great
spot, and ended up parking slightly up hill, so the bike didn’t
lean over quite as much as I’d normally like while on the side
stand.

So not thinking, I go to load up the back on the back of the
bike. As I’m pulling on the bungee net to get it secure, I manage
to pull the bike off the side stand, and over on it’s side it
goes. Ground was still soft from the rain, so no damage done, but
kind of a dumb way to drop a bike. Stood it back up and reparked
it in a better spot, and finished packing.

Rode back to Raleigh from Statesville, pretty uneventful. A lot of
traffic, moving faster than usual, and it was a bit hot out. But
bearable.

One odd thing was I found myself kind of target fixating on the
ground just ahead of me, instead of looking down the road. A bad
habit. So I remind myself not to do that, and loop up. About 5
seconds later, lots of brake lights start coming on and some
cars start to swerve. Couldn’t hear any squealing tires or crashes
though, but then, with ear plugs, it’s hard to hear much of
anything.

I eventually catch up with whats causing the ruckus. A tire rolling
down the middle of the left lane of I-40. Apparently it had fallen
off a truck carrying new tires. Kind of odd to pass a rolling tire
on the interstate.

Got home, put the bike in the shed. Took a nap. Now I have to
go back to work.

trip counter: 993
todays mileage: 341 miles

Woke up in Boone. Grabbed breakfast at the hotel. Packed
up. Had to throw out the bag I bought at walmart with the
intent of keeping stuff dry, since it was just too bulky.

Loaded up the bike for the ride and checked out. Last
night I had decided that since I was only 10 miles or
so from the TN border, I would run down 321 across the
border and back to Boone. Which I did.

About the time I got stopped at a gas station in TN,
it looked like it was about to rain again. Since I’ve
had my fair share of rain, I stopped and put on the
new walmart rain suit. Going on the theory that if
I’m actually prepared, I will not hit any rain.

At this point, I was riding without any gloves. Since
my gloves were soaked the previous night, and didn’t
seem to be drying out, I had a brilliant idea. I’ll
try putting one in the microwave. Needless to say,
this was a bad idea, and the glove kind of shrank
up and deformed before I realized it, rendering it
pretty much useless. So I just tossed them.

Since riding in the inevitable rain without any
gloves seemed a little pointless, I stopped at the
Super K-Mart in Boone and bought some rawhide work
gloves and some duct tape. Just in case.

Decided to head towards the Blue Ridge Parkway
towards Virginia. I ended up getting on the
parkway at Blowing Rock, and heading north.

It was very foggy for a while, but so far
no rain. I didn’t make many stops, aside from
one or two overlooks. Rode pretty leisurely.

After one of the stops, a Park Service truck
pulled out behind me and stay about 6 feet behind
me for about 25 miles, where I finally pulled over
at The Bluffs? to get some water.

The person driving the truck got out and warned me
that they could of called the ranger on me for speeding.
I’m pretty sure I never got over about 48 tops, and if
so, only briefly. But I supposed if I was speeding, they
would know since they were about to run over me for half
an hour.

Talked with another guy on a motorcycle. By the way, if it
wasn’t obvious, the mountains/parkway is absolutely covered
in motorcycles. The little “hey look, it’s someone else
on a motorcycle” wave gets a little tedious after passing
a few hundred bikes.

This guy was on some mid 80’s Yamaha touring bike. Aside from
the usual touring features, he had also fitted a full size cooler
hanging off the rear fender. Apparently, they were riding up
from Huntsville, Al and were heading to Maine.

There were a ton of big BMW’s at this stop as well. I’m not
exactly sure how they do it, but those bikes were absolutely
spotless. At this point, my bike is a mess, with water spots,
mud, bugs, and other mess.

Got back on the parkway heading north to Virginia. The parkway
at this point starts to get a little boring, as you are coming
out of the mountains. It also starts to look a lot more
like a normal road, as there are a lot more intersections with
normal roads, and you can see houses and businesses from the
parkway.

Once i-77 crosses the parkway, I decided to get off and get
some gas. After filling up, I took a look at the map and
decided that West Virginia wasn’t that far away. So I took
off up I-77.

Pretty uneventful ride up I-77. It gets a bit windy coming
out of some of those tunnels. It’s also very quiet riding
though the tunnels and it can be a bit disorienting. Kind of
like riding 55mph indoors.

Made it to WV, and started looking for an exit to
turn around. Oddly, the first exit is about 10
miles inside of WV. So stopped there, topped off gas
and headed back south. Figured I’d just come down
I-77 to Statesville and stop at my parents.

At this point, it still hasn’t rained any. It wasn’t
until about a mile from my parents house that I ran into
any way. Figures.

trip counter: 652
todays mileage: 178

Woke up in Hendersonville. Late start, out the hotel just
before 11am. Someone decided to use half of my parking
space to park there car in. Nice.

Breakfast at the gas station. Headed north to Asheville on
26, stop at the Farmers Market on the way. Headed into
Asheville with the intent of finding where I used to live.
I knew the street and the exit, but unfortunately, the
exit was “Haywood”. For whatever reason there are a couple
of Haywood streets in Asheville, and at least one “old Haywood”.
Didn’t help that some of the roads on my detailed Asheville
map were labeled wrong.

Roads in Asheville are horrible. No parallel roads, etc.
And I think there are about 50 “Brevard” roads.

Since I was in Asheville, I went though Tunnel Road.
Twice. Then wrong turn back onto 240, ended up on
Town Mountain Road which was cooler anyway.
Very curvy road over Asheville, which eventually
ran into the Blue Ridge Parkway. Headed north on
the BRP to Mt Mitchell. Road up to the top, saw another
Bonneville heading down. Lots of bikes out.

Went up to the top. Marked a waypoint on the GPS.
Went up into the tower and took some pics.

Someone asked if the bike was some sort of “cross”
bike. They weren’t quite able to convey to me what
they meant by “cross” other than not like a cruiser
or a dirt bike. Saw the GPS and asked if I geocache,
which I don’t, but keep meaning to try.

Down Mt Mitchell, then north up the parkway again,
was running a little low on gas so figured I’d get
off the next stop and fill up. Unfortunately, that
road was 80, and it was a long way to a gas station.
But 80 down to Marion is awesome. Highly recommended.

The road there mostly follows some river, which
I’ve forgotten the name of, but looked like it
would be excellent for white water rafting. So
road down the steep twisty road, with a white
water river on one side, and mountain on the
other side. Very cool.
I had sort of layered up to go up Mt Mitchell, but
it was actually pretty warm. So I unlayered in
Marion.

Which was a mistake, since not 10 miles north
it was thunderstorm time again. Stop and put
on my crappy rain gear, but I was already pretty
soaked. So kept riding up ?? towards Linville
caverns. Stopped there, but they were about to close,
so just hung out for a while. Then kept going up
north, figured I’d hit Boone.

Kept getting stuck behind these two guys on Harleys
who were running about 10-15 under the speed limit.
Every time I thought they had turned off, in a few
minutes, they would have taken some short cut and
gotten back in front of me.

Got to Boone, had trouble finding a room, but eventually
did. Even though it was warm out, I was riding around
soaked for about two hours and was pretty cold. So
took a hot shower and headed back out to get some
food and pick up a dry tshirt/socks from walmart.

Then back to the hotel, and watched some womens lacrosse.
Hmmm, chicks with sticks and funky goggles.

Not sure where I’m headed tomorrow. Might head north
to Tenn. Maybe west to Deals Gap. Maybe up the
BRP to Virgina.

Things learned:

my “rain” gear is not even remotely waterproof

Under Armor works great when it’s warm. When it’s
not hot and your soaked though, it keeps you
cold.

Strapping the top part of the modular tank bag
to the pillion part of the seat works well,
and throwing the reflective fest in the
map pocket works well.